100 days in, Greens’ leader Paul says she’s close to homing in on where to run
Green Party Leader Annamie Paul had an unusual victory lap. After she won her party’s leadership race in October 2020, and made history as the first Black and Jewish leader of a major political party in Canada, she swiftly turned her attention to a byelection race in a Liberal stronghold in Toronto later that month. […]
Twitter’s crackdown on Trump ‘a Band-Aid on a wound,’ say politicos
The de-platforming of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump by various social media companies is akin to putting a Band-Aid on a wound and should prompt deep reflection about the conditions that led to the political violence in the U.S., say some politicians. Mr. Trump was impeached on Jan. 13 by the U.S. House of Representatives […]
Federal departments miss quarter of annual targets, with Transportation Safety Board, National Defence among poorest performers
About 24 per cent of government programs tracked at the departmental level missed their performance targets in 2019-20, in a near-replica of the rate of unmet goals in the previous year. Twenty-three departments or agencies missed more than a third of their targets set for March 2020, including the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (49 […]
Bloc MP Gill tops MP spending for first half of 2020-21
New disclosure requirements offer new, one-stop-shop details on how MPs are spending their office budgets, including extra information about the costs MPs bill for individual trips. While her travel expenses, like many MPs’, have been down during the 2020-21 fiscal year compared to the one previous, it still came with significant single-trip travel costs for […]
House and Senate joint committees haven’t met since 2019
Parliament’s two standing joint committees have yet to meet in this Parliament and have not convened since 2019. The Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament and the Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations, which are one of the few venues where members of the two Chambers interact, have yet to meet since the […]
No deal yet on remote House proceedings, with app process and Chamber-wide testing still to be resolved
An agreement to allow the continuation of remote hybrid sittings of the House of Commons and its committees still has yet to be reached, and with Liberals pushing pursuit of a new voting application system, opposition House leaders say Chamber-wide testing and key details on its process are still be ironed out. “I don’t doubt […]
NCC proposal for new embassy row could boost diplomatic presence away from the Hill
If a new National Capital Commission embassy row proposal receives the City of Ottawa’s approval, it could grow the diplomatic presence further from the hub of the Parliamentary Precinct and the traditional locale of most embassies in Ottawa, which might lead some foreign missions to be skeptical about moving into the proposed new buildings. The […]
Only, but not lonely: former broadcaster and political rookie Marci Ien brings community to solitary House role
Marci Ien is used to going it alone. She was the first Black woman to co-host a morning show in Canada and now, as a recently elected Member of Parliament, she is the only Black woman in the House of Commons. “I’ve been an ‘only’ my whole life,” she said. “I’ve been an ‘only’ most […]
Trudeau reflecting ‘public mood’ in insisting he isn’t eager for an election, says strategist
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s his “preference” not to hold an election in the middle of the country’s biggest inoculation campaign yet, but he “can’t control what other parties do.” Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) shuffled a few of his senior cabinet ministers on Jan. 12, heightening speculation that Canadians could be headed to the […]
In a first, Trudeau shuffles cabinet in virtual ceremony
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffled a few of his cabinet ministers on Tuesday, in a move that was precipitated by the departure of one of his longest-serving deputies. In a first, the swearing-in ceremony took place virtually, with the government opting to livestream it on Twitter in adherence to public health measures. Each participant occupied […]
